A Study in Scarlet — page 35: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A STUDY IN StanL£7. oy air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor, then. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, ind that 1s not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.’ The whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished.” “It 1s simple enough as you explain it,”’ I said, smil- ing. “You remind me of Edgar Allan Poe’s Dupin. I had no idea that such individuals did exist outside of stories,” Sherlock Holmes rose and lighted his pipe. “No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin,” he observed. “ Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow. That trick of his of breaking in on his friends’ thoughts with an apropos remark after a quarter of an hour’s silence is really very showy and superficial He had some analytical genius, no doubt; but he was by no means such a phenomenon as Poe appeared to imagine.” “ Have you read Gaboriau’s works?” I asked. ‘‘ Does Lecog come up to your idea of a detective?” Sherlock Holmes sniffed sardonically. “ Lecoq was a miserable bungler,”’ he said, in an an- gry voice; “he had only one thing to recommend him, and that was his energy. That hook made me posi- tively i]. The question was how to identify an unknown GOMmiGcdoo